The pain of forgetting a loved one can almost be as painful as realizing that, no matter what you do, your love means nothing to them in the end. Whether it be through the turbulence of life, or the darkness of insanity, either way, that person will forever be out of your grasp, and the only way you can meet them is through death. And even then, it isn’t a guarantee; after all, there is a point in time when not even death can reunite you with the one you love. Such was the case of Archibald Malmaison.

Archibald Malmaison, by Julian Hawthorne, introduces the titular character as a man who has a rather strange illness. Every seven years, the character would change personalities, where one personality would be incredibly robust, sociable and confident, and the other almost childlike. This changes when Archibald meets a woman named Kate, whom he can’t help but fall in love with. They concoct a plan for the two to be together which involves killing Kate’s husband, and, despite Archibald’s changing personalities, the two continue to love each other. However, when the two kill Kate’s husband, Archibald reverts back to his old persona. When Archibald’s personality finally resurfaces, he goes out to meet his beloved, only to find that she had already died.

The story contains many elements of a gothic love story. You have the mysterious yet charming Archibald Malmaison, who suffers from an abnormal malady that interferes with his life. You have Kate, who was willing to murder her husband in order to be with Archibald. And finally, you have all the themes of a star-crossed love, in which, despite everything the two have done for each other, they end up separated throughout time. Theirs was a tragic love story, and despite the sweet love they shared, even death could not guarantee their reunion. Although many often read to escape the painful realities of life, in the end, even the happiest of dreams is no way to escape such an ending. It’s a dark, gothic tale, like many other books in the Romantic Revolution, but nevertheless is an interesting one that represents a majority of the books during this era. What’s more, the book shows that both the Dark Romantic era in Europe and the American Gothic have more similarities than differences; they both attack the abnormal, demonizing it and showing just how cruel that world can be.

The book was written by the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. While he isn’t as well known as his father, or his mother, Sophia Peabody, he still carved a career out of himself by writing various poetry and essays. Interestingly enough, he was also a writer for Cosmopolitan, and though he enrolled in Harvard, he never graduated. In hindsight, he merely followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, never straying from the norm of a writer’s life in that time. Still, this book is near and dear to my heart. It’s a historical novel that represents some of the elements that encompassed the values of the time, as well as representing a time in which society was consumed by thoughts of madness and insanity. It was a way to continue on the legacy of the American Gothic era, and one that continues to be read by millions today.